A study on partnering algorithm based on N-person cooperative game in virtual enterprise

The selection of business partners (i.e. partnering) is a very important and critical activity in the operation of a company in a Virtual Enterprise (VE). In this paper, we focus on the negotiation process in VE formulation as a basic research to clarify its effective management. Each enterprise in the VE is defined as an agent with multi-utilities and agent behavior is modeled with an N-person cooperative game to make a compromise on their multiple objectives. We develop a computer simulation model to form a virtual enterprise through multiple negotiations amongst several potential members in the negotiation domain, and finally clarify the formulation dynamism with the negotiation process.